The Elements Come Together

"Yous lot are doin' my head in!" Chop picked up his pint glass and strode away from the table. Izzy bounced out of her seat and followed him, trying to calm him down.

"Bloody hell," Rae said, shaking her head.

Chloe tossed her hair and said, "Look, I'm not sure I can be in the band, either."

Archie looked at her, incredulous. "Chloe, we've been plannin' this for weeks! You've already got the bass. Can't we at least have a proper practice before everyone quits?"

Chloe sighed and shrugged. "Okay, fine. I'll come to practice, but it can't be Monday or Tuesday, because I've got French Club and Rounders."

Archie sighed and opened his school bag to grab a notebook and pen. "Fine! I guess I'll have to get everyone's schedules and make sure people aren't missing their extracurriculars."

Rae and Finn, who were sitting side by side as usual, both shook their heads. Finn wrote B-O-R-I-N-G on Rae's thigh. She smirked and said to Archie, "No need to schedule 'round Finn an' me. We're both layabouts with no after-school commitments." Finn chuckled and stubbed out his cigarette. He leaned over to whisper, "What abou' Kester?" in her ear. She quickly shook her head and whispered back, "He's on Tuesdays, anyway."

Archie smiled gratefully. "Okay, cool." He made a grid of the month and started marking days of the weeks. "I think I can move my extra revisions to Tuesday, so that should work," he muttered to himself.

Rae looked up to see Izzy dragging Chop back to the table. "Chop says he's sorry for storming off." She shot him a look. "Don't you, Arnold?" Chops looked chagrined at her use of his real name and nodded. "Yeh, sorry."

Archie glanced up from his calendar and said, "I'm sorry, too, Chop. I just didn't think it was practical for the drummer to sing. I mean, alright, there's Phil Collins, but he's not quite . . . "

Chop waved his hand. "Point taken, mate. We've got enough singin' talent wi'out me gurglin' out tunes." He takes a swig of lager. "But if we cover Champagne Supernova, all bets are off!"

Everyone laughed, remembering his turn at Rae's mum's reception.

Archie sat up straighter and cleared his throat. "Alright, then! I think I've worked out the line up, then. Chop, you're on drums." Chop thumped out a quick riff on the table. "Finn, you're technically rhythm guitar, but you know some songs better than me, so we'll switch up between lead and rhythm." Finn lit another cigarette and nodded.

"Chloe, you're on bass. Are you sure you're okay with that? I mean, we can probably work around it and lose the second guitar on most songs." Chloe had entertained fantasies about being the lead singer, but it turned out she couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. Despite her threat, she really wanted to be in the band. But, in her inimitable way, she wanted to be constantly reassured that everyone else wanted her to be in the band, too. Not only did she have the bass, she'd been practicing most nights. She nodded quickly, and said, "I'm alrigh', Archie."

"Izzy …" Archie looked at his notes. "Um, tambourine? I don't know how many songs we need a tambourine for."

Izzy smiled and said, "Well, just put me as back-up percussion."

Chop grinned cheekily and said, "Slash groupie!" Izzy smiled, but punched him in the shoulder for good measure. "Shut up, you!" she grinned.

Archie smiled and went back to his list. "So, that leaves me, on lead—" He looked at Finn. "—slash rhythm guitar, and Rae on—"

Rae took a deep breath. She didn't know if she could do it.

"—lead vocals." Archie looked up and smiled at her. Finn squeezed her leg under the table, and she glanced over to find him grinning ear to ear.

"Are you sure about this, Archie?" she heard herself asking. "I mean, you're a great singer and you've sung in front of people before, and I might … freeze up. Or whatever." She looked down. "I can be backing vocals!"

Finn lightly hit her thigh. "Oi, I'm backin' vocals! Stop tryin' to steal me job."

"Yeah, Rae, you have a great voice!" protested Archie. "And it will give our band an edge. Everyone and their brother has a Nirvana cover band—four guys with stringy hair thrashin' around on stage. There aren't a lot of bands with a girl singin' lead."

The rest of the gang nodded in agreement, even Chloe. She thought about the irony of the situation. How she would have loved to have been center stage and center of attention, while Rae dreaded the prospect of having a roomful of strangers staring at her. She remembered well the conversation they'd had a couple of months ago, outside this pub, when Rae had put her in her place and told her that in fact she did know what it was like to have everybody stare at her, and that it was nothing like Chloe's experiences.

Rae's eyes were cast down at her lap. She said, "Well, let's have a couple of practices first, and we can decide for sure later." The gang decided to accept her offer, but everyone knew she was right for the band.

Archie flipped back a page to his rudimentary calendar. "Alright, then! First practice Wednesday? Chloe, can we use your garage?"

Chloe said, "I'll have to check wi' my mum an' dad, but it shouldn't be a problem."

"Great. We'll plan on that unless we hear otherwise." Archie grabbed his pen again, "Now, we should figure out which songs we want to practice."

Finn hadn't said much up to this point, but he has actually spent whole evenings in the last couple of weeks, listening to dozens of albums to figure out which songs he most wants to hear Rae sing.

A few weeks back, Finn and Archie had been chatting in the pub before anyone else showed up. They were looking at all the flyers for bands littering the walls of the pub, hastily hand-lettered with pictures cut out of a magazine photocopied on fluorescent A4, and said that if these knobheads could form a band and play gigs, ANYONE could.

Archie took a drink and said, "If I'm honest, I've always fancied bein' in a band. Like, every time I go to a concert, part o' me wishes I was the one on stage. Is that daft?"

Finn shook his head, "No, man! You're always playin' away at tha' guitar on open mic night. You're really good."

"How's your playin' comin' along? You're pretty secretive abou' it," Archie said.

"Ah, well. I've got some songs I'm alrigh' on. Why d'ya ask?"

"I just—why don' we?"

"Wha'?"

"Start a band!" Archie looked at Finn earnestly. "I mean, like ya said, if these lot can do it …" He waved his finger at the wall of flyers.

"Hold on, now, Arch. There's more to it than just sayin' we're a band. We both play guitar. We'd need other people." Even as he said it, though, he thought of Rae, singing quietly to herself along to music in his room. He wondered …

Archie nodded, "Exac'ly. We'll get everyone in the gang to do something. It could be like, a … gang band!"

Finn narrowed his eyes. "Tha's not gonna be the name, is it?"

Archie waved his hand. "We'll work on tha' bit later. What do you think?"

Finn lit a cigarette while he pondered the prospect. It wasn't like they were signing a record contract. They could chuck the whole idea if they weren't any good (unlike half the acts advertising on the walls of the pub.) "Alrigh', we'll put it to 'em when they get here and see what everyone else reckons."

Chop had taken no convincing. He was always ready for any daft plan anyone came up with. Izzy did pretty much anything Chop would. Chloe's eyes had lit up, thinking about being under the stage lights as she fantasized about people looking at her because she was cool, not just because she was fit. Rae wasn't sure. "I don't play an instrument," she said flatly. She wanted to be involved somehow. She laughed and said, "I can be your roadie!"

Chop and Archie laughed at her suggestion, but Finn's face clouded over. "Nah, Rae, you should sing!" He hadn't meant to blurt it out like that, but her self-deprecation made him jump the gun.

"You wha'?" she asked, incredulous. "I only just started singin' in the school choir. I don't think I'm ready for …" she trailed off, not sure what she wasn't ready for, but knowing she wasn't.

"They'd hardly have let you in if you couldn't sing, would they?" Finn protested. Archie, Chop and Izzy nodded in agreement. Chloe looked away, a little taken aback. She'd just assumed they would ask her to sing. Not that she'd done it in years, but she was, like, the fittest girl of the three of them. Even in her head, that sounded bitchy.

Rae shrugged. "I guess not, but—"

"No buts! We're jus' goin' to practice some songs. Nothin' big. If we're crap, we'll pack it in." Finn spread his arms wide and smiled at Rae. "No pressure, babe!"

Rae smiled back, "I s'pose we could have a few practices." She noticed Chloe quiet in the corner of the booth. "An' Chloe can play bass!" Everyone looked surprised at this suggestion. Simultaneously, Chloe asked "I can?" and the gang wondered, "She can?"

"Well, you're grade 4 on the cello, right? I read somethin' in NME. Some bassist sayin' it's basically the same thing. You just pick it up and lose the bow." Chloe raised her eyebrows. "We might have to call you Kim, though!"

Finn and Archie cracked up at this, while Chloe was in the dark on the reference. "Why?" she wondered.

"Kim Gordon and Kim Deal are, like, the two most famous female bass guitarists ever," Archie explained.

"Oh, yeah, right." Chloe pretended she knew that, but had momentarily forgot.

Finn piped up with, "I think a mate of mine is looking to unload his bass. We could see what he wants fer it and maybe split it between us." Archie and Chop nodded.

Chloe took a deep breath and said, "Yeah, bu' …" The gang all looked at her expectantly. She tried to think how she'd say, "But I want to be the lead singer!" without sounding like a total knobhead wanker. She couldn't, so she shook her head. "Never mind. I'm willin' to give it a go."

Chop, Archie, Finn, and Rae took it in turns to high five each other. When Finn swiveled around to high five Rae, and she tousled his hair instead. He grabbed her round the waist and nuzzled her neck. Chop put Izzy in a playful headlock and kissed her cheek. Archie noticed that Chloe was still a little quiet, and shoved his palm in her direction. She looked at it suspiciously before tentatively tapping her hand to his. "Tha's what I'm talkin' about!" he said.

Chop stood up and said, "We need a celebratory round at this table!" He started to saunter over to the bar, shouting, "BARMAN! A pitcher of your finest warm piss, if you please!"

It was a warm Saturday afternoon. School had just resumed, and everything felt somehow fresh. Rae and Finn had been officially official for only a couple of weeks, so lots of things were new.

The two of them were lounging on Finn's double bed. The window was open and the breeze gently stirred the curtains and the warm light from the setting sun filled the room. Finn and Rae had just broken apart after a vigorous make out session. They stared up at the ceiling, panting slightly, lips raw and red. Rae licked her lips and smiled. Finn turned on his side to look at her, ran his fingers lightly up the inside of her arm, and she shivered.

Just then, the song changed on the Smith's album they were listening to. It was "Well I Wonder" and Rae was so relaxed and happy she sang along like she would if she were alone in her room at home. She'd lived every word and note of this song, and Finn could hear it in her voice. Before he even realized it was there, a tear slipped out of the corner of his eye, and fell onto his pillow. He moved forward to kiss Rae gently on the cheek. A tear had trickled down her cheek, as well, and the salt slightly stung his chapped lips, making them tingle. She turned her head to look at him, and gave him a sweet, sad smile.

He was learning her moods, and he somehow sensed this song reminded her of a not-so-happy part of her past. "That was beautiful," he whispered. "Just like you." He reached out to twirl a strand of her long dark hair.

She blushed and covered her face with her hand. "Can't believe I sang the whole song, sorry."

"What're ya sorry for? I jus' said it was beautiful. You have a lovely voice, Rae." He lifted her hand from her face to place it below her chest and then looked her in the eye. "I'm serious. You know me better than to think I'd lie t'ya abou' anythin' music-related."

She chuckled and flashed him a devilish look. "Yeah, you'd lie about lots of other things, bu' never that."

He protested. "Wait! That's not wha' I mea—" She elbowed him in the rib and said, "I'm only jokin'!"

Finn smiled, but quickly sobered. "Maybe someday you'll let someone other than me hear ya sing," he said softly.

She cleared her throat and said, "Well, I joined the school choir." She felt a little sheepish about the admission.

"When did this 'appen? Were ya plannin' on tellin' me about it?" Finn swatted her shoulder playfully.

"Jus' yesterday. I had two free periods and Mrs. Gardner suggested I give the choir a go."

"That's bloody fantastic," Finn said, beaming. The wheels hadn't yet begun to turn, but soon they would.